GTX480 upgrade for surround gaming

[Helium_Junkie]

Hi there. I currently have one GTX480, and am interested in moving into three monitor gaming.

1) Do I need to have three identical monitors or will different resolutions work?
2) What's a decent upgrade path to enable multi monitor gaming? Am I correct in understand that to do it with one card I need to go AMD?

Any suggestions are appreciated

-HJ

 

[ALXAndy]

No there are Nvidia cards that do it but few. KFA2 do a 570 but I have reservations as to whether one 570 would be enough for 3 screen gaming..

Different resolutions won't work no, but you could force the same resolutions all all three (would look appalling though !) plus then you have a serious fight on your hands to match contrast and brightness and colour levels.

 

[cmndr_andi]

Hi there,

1) Yes, you need identical resolution monitors to make Surround gaming work. Quoting from the Nvidia site:

All displays must have a common resolution, refresh rate, and sync polarity

2) Well you have two main options:

- Buy a second GTX 480 and run it in SLI - so that you can get Nvidia 2D Surround Gaming working. This will require a SLI-capable motherboard and a very nice PSU (900W+ is usually recommended for SLI GTX 480).
- Buy one (or two) high-end AMD cards and run the three identical monitors in eyefinity.

 

[Helium_Junkie]

Any suggestions for an option that a Corsair 750W TX PSU can support, for 3 screens?

 

[cmndr_andi]

Wait for the GTX 680 2GB to come out.

A single one of these cards will support up to four screens.


If you need something now then GTX 560Ti 2GB SLI should work with a corsair 750W.

 

[ThePengu1n]

Wait for the GTX 680 2GB to come out.

A single one of these cards will support up to four screens.


If you need something now then GTX 560Ti 2GB SLI should work with a corsair 750W.

Cheapest 2GB 560ti on OCUK is £200, so thats £400 to run sli (which you would have to do for surround). You would do far better to spend that money on a 7950/7970, 3GB of VRAM and more than powerfull enough for eyefinity.

 

[cmndr_andi]

Cheapest 2GB 560ti on OCUK is £200, so thats £400 to run sli (which you would have to do for surround). You would do far better to spend that money on a 7950/7970, 3GB of VRAM and more than powerfull enough for eyefinity.

+1 I would also go for the HD 7950 3GB (if the OP isn't prepared to wait for the Nvidia Kepler launch) these are good cards which work well at high resolutions and are packed with VRAM.

The GTX 560Ti SLI option isn't a great one as you are relying on SLI scaling to work properly to get the good performance, plus it is expensive.

 

[vUNREALv]

If it helps you i run 3 screens at 5760x1080 on 2 geforce 480's i dont run out of vram and any game i play which currently are, battlefield 3, mw3 and mass effect 3 all run butter smooth at very high settings, i also run them from a 750 watt powersupply with an i5 @ 4.5ghz and both my 480's at 850 core 2000 memory having said that my psu is better than the corsair powersupply you would be using.

 

[arekgreenman888]

If it helps you i run 3 screens at 5760x1080 on 2 geforce 480's i dont run out of vram and any game i play which currently are, battlefield 3, mw3 and mass effect 3 all run butter smooth at very high settings, i also run them from a 750 watt powersupply with an i5 @ 4.5ghz and both my 480's at 850 core 2000 memory having said that my psu is better than the corsair powersupply you would be using.

Whats your psu please? Though Corsair and coolmaster are the best there is.

 

[ALXAndy]

Whats your psu please? Though Corsair and coolmaster are the best there is.

Nah, they're not.

 

[vUNREALv]

Hi, sorry didnt mean to sound as though your psu was crap or anything As obviously it isnt but my xfx core 750 is a re badged seasonic powersupply as with all the xfx psu's, its hard to get better than a seasonic psu thats all, which might be a factor as to why my rig is fine running off it.

My system is rock solid stable 24/7 and it gets a huge amount of use if its not running bf3 at 5760x1080 its encoding blu rays.

 

[cmndr_andi]

The Corsair TX 750W is actually a Seasonic-built unit too (though of a slightly older design).

Both are good PSUs, though running a GTX 480 SLI rig with such a PSU is cutting it close to the limits of the unit.

 

[arekgreenman888]

The Corsair TX 750W is actually a Seasonic-built unit too (though of a slightly older design).

Both are good PSUs, though running a GTX 480 SLI rig with such a PSU is cutting it close to the limits of the unit.

People say good about xfx's psu's but they are not even fully modular.

So which corsair would you recommend andi for sli righ of 2x480's or 2x570's...?

thanks

 

[cmndr_andi]

For 2x480 - I would opt for something like the HX 1050W (here is a review).

For 2x570 - I would go with a HX 850W or AX 850W. A 750W (like the AX 750W or HX 750W) should run these cards too, but if you are going to spend this much on GPUs +PSU I would want some headroom, so hence the 850Ws.

As for not being "fully modular" you will find that most "modular" PSUs are similar, with the motherboard power cables and a PCIE power connection being none-modular (sometimes other cable types are also included in this none-modular part). Though I guess the Corsair AX series and Seasonic X series are fully modular, but you pay a premium for these (very nice quality/efficiency) units.

 

[ALXAndy]

Hi, sorry didnt mean to sound as though your psu was crap or anything As obviously it isnt but my xfx core 750 is a re badged seasonic powersupply as with all the xfx psu's, its hard to get better than a seasonic psu thats all, which might be a factor as to why my rig is fine running off it.

My system is rock solid stable 24/7 and it gets a huge amount of use if its not running bf3 at 5760x1080 its encoding blu rays.

The best PSUs on the market IMO are Enermax. Especially the Revolution and its successor the Platimax.

I ran quad SLI (295s) from a 625w Modu II. Mind you, cheap they most certainly ain't. My Modu II cost £110 for a 625w.

Not that there is anything wrong with Corsair supplies of course, and their RMA is among the best I've used.

XFX's RMA? non existent. You are at the mercy of the retailer.

 

[Helium_Junkie]

So now the Nvidia 6 series are out, the 670 seems like an almost affordable first step toward surround gaming? I still have the "Corsair 750W TX PSU - 120mm Fan, 80+% Efficiency, Single +12V Rail" - will this and a 670 be friends?

Would this be enough to play BF3 in surround, after getting a couple more monitors further down the line?

 

[setter]

750w psu and gtx 670 would be fine, you could run sli'd 670's on that psu no probs. With a single oc'd gtx 670 and an i7 920 @4ghz im seeing a power draw at the wall of 420w when gaming.